Kid bits

There's a few random things about the kids I've been meaning to post.
This photo below is Morgan's breakfast last week when she couldn't decide, Cheerios or Rice Krispies? Silly girl.
I felt like such a neglectful mother 2 weeks ago when I learned Hayden had been wearing shoes 2 1/2 sizes too small for some time. I saw him in Sacrament meeting (at church) with his shoes off, and leaned over and told him to put them back on, we weren't relaxing on a couch at home. He said, "But they hurt me."
"What do you mean they hurt you?"
"My toes are SO squished in them."
After investigating, I realized that his church shoes were a size 2, when he wears a size 31/2! I felt so bad! At least it was only on Sunday's that he was wearing these, right?

The size 2 on the left, and the roomy size 3 1/2 on the right.

Every day when I make the kids lunches, I put a little note on the paper towel like this below:

Then wrap it up and send it with them. Well, Hayden has asked me to no longer write these little notes, as it is embarrassing in front of his friends! AH-break my heart why don't you! So, I took a photo of his LAST note!

In this photo below, Hayden was doing his chores, but didn't want to stop playing with Ashlyn. So his solution to the problem was to wear her in the backpack, then she could still be with him. She of course loved this! What a good big brother he is! Duncan has been going to his speech class at the school the last few weeks, and has been doing really well. I have to admit that secretly I am sad that he's speaking so well, I will miss hearing "I wuv you!".....
Ashlyn is now 9 months old, and has dropped from the 50% to the 23% for her weight. Apparently she has only gained 1 lb. in the last 3 months, and the doctor is concerned. She is very long though, and eats really well, so I'm not worried. But, we now need to go back for a 'weight check' in a few weeks to 'keep an eye on it'. She is my first child EVER that has been UNDER the normal weight. Most of my kids were 20 lbs. by 6 or 7 months (Ashlyn is 17 lbs. now). She is very long though, and most people think she's at least 1 when looking at her length. I has someone ask me if she was 2 yet the other day...I don't think they've been around young kids for a while, because she doesn't look anything like a 2 year old to me! She has mastered going up the stairs, and is learning the going down part. The nice thing is that she is VERY cautious, and just sits at the top of the stairs and calls out if she makes it up there with out me noticing, when she wants to come down.

Memorial Day Weekend in Delaware

WARNING: This post may contain far TOO many pictures than should be allowed in a single post!
ADDITIONAL WARNING: The photographer may have taken TOO many photos of Ashlyn, but frankly, who cares?! She's the baby, and therefore SHOULD be photographed the most, right?

This past weekend we rented a cottage in Delaware, and had a wonderful time. Although it was not exactly what I had pictured, it was a great place! Originally, based off of the photo in the ad, I was under the impression that the cottage was RIGHT on the beach, and we would then NOT have to leave that one spot the whole time! Not so. It was on the River inlet to the Atlantic Ocean, and while there was some sand in front of the cottage, no beach. But, the kids still had fun playing in the sand there, and the beach was a minute and a half drive away. So, all was well, and we had a very relaxing time.
That is of course after the first 12 hours were over! About 2 minutes after we had arrived at the cottage, one of the kids (who will remain nameless), went to use the bathroom, and apparently thought they had bad gas, but it ended up to be more than that. Too much information I'm sure, but this child then tried to clean it up with toilet paper, which only smeared it around the floor, and on this child's foot! What a mess! So, that was the first thing I got to do on this RELAXING vacation, was to clean up the floor while the child showered! The fun never ends!
That first night Ashlyn did NOT sleep well, and I was up 3-4 times with her in the night. Only to be awoken by another child who had WET THE BED! AH! On a bed with no plastic! So, Brian set to scrubbing the mattress down, while I washed the sheets. Luckily we had a washer/dryer in the place, but it was a stack able one, and the comforter would not fit. So, I washed it in the sink, and laid it out over the deck furniture on the screened porch!
Then, Brian and Hayden went on an early morning walk around this nature preserve island, and came back with quite a tale to tell. There was a sign on the island that warned that there were ticks there (not to worry, they applied plenty of bug spray). Then as they continued their walk they came to a sign that said the trail was closed. "That must be wrong" Brian thought, and pressed on. Well, when they came to the wooded area, they were 'bombarded' by ticks! In Hayden's words, they were "in the middle of a blood-sucking buffet!" So, their 30 min. walk lasted almost 90 mins., as they would stop when they came out of the woods and check each other for ticks before the trail entered the woods again. Now why did they carry on you might ask (I did)? Apparently it was a circular route, and they were half way through when they discovered that they were under attack. So, they came home and got all cleaned up, and as far as we know no ticks made a permanent home on their bodies!
So, after that excitement was all over it WAS a very relaxing trip! The rest of the time we just hung out at the beach, or at the cottage watching our cute kids play together-and taking photos of that happening! Here's a few(ha ha ha) photos from the trip. And believe it or not, I took SO many more than what's here!
This is the view looking out back from the cottage.
The living room.
View from kitchen/dinning room with the ladder up to the loft.
The bathroom had no tub, shower only, so we bathed Ashlyn in the sink-she loved it.
Little doll face.

Look! Proof that I do interact with the kids on vacation, and don't just take photos the whole time!
Morgan & Ronan running at low tide-my favorite time of the day.
Hayden had fun with the kite in the evening when there was no one on the beach.
Morgan the Mermaid

Here are some of the many sand crabs that they LOVE to catch!
Sand Angel!
Ronan & Morgan both had a blast trying to catch some waves! They weren't too big this time, but fun none the less.

I liked the reflection in this photo

The girls had some fun sister moments. Morgan sure loves having a little doll... I mean sister!

Look, there I am again-I WAS on this vacation!
I love how small Ashlyn looks here next to Brian, and looking up at him and all.
Ronan on the hunt for sand crabs!

Ashlyn loved playing in the sand! Here she kept picking it up and putting the sand on the chair. Entertained her for 20 minutes! This trip was here first encounter with sand.
Sandy hands
Sandy toes
Sand in the mouth! Tastes so yummy!

This was one of my favorites of the boys.
Hayden and his kite.
Duncan & Morgan had some fun with the kite too.
Duncan just loves being in the water!
What a happy girl!

For the first time in the history of Brian going to the beach, he did NOT build a HUGE sand castle with the kids! He tried the whole relaxing thing with me! And he LOVED it! And the kids still had fun with their own castle in the sand. He said he did feel neglectful though not going all out with the castle.
Ashlyn enjoyed nice walks on the beach with daddy when she was getting tired.
Hayden found an efficient digging posture when looking for crabs.
Again, another shot of my cutie-I can't help it!

Morgan and her prints down the beach
Here's Duncan running along the shore line.
I caught him looking back at his prints! He thought it was great fun to see what his feet 'made'!
This is Duncan's foot and Daddy's foot
Happy carefree boy!

Morgan.
Ashlyn.
Hayden.
Tired girl after a long day!
The End.

The Angry Elf

I don't know if you ever saw the movie Elf, but when it came out a few years ago it was one of Ronan's favorites! He had a few lines from the movie that he would constantly repeat. One of them was from the scene in a conference room when a Buddy (Will Ferrell's character) calls a midget an elf. This midget gets upset, and so Buddy calls him an 'angry elf', right before he charges at him. Anyway, this was Ronan's all time favorite part, and today I was feeling like an 'Angry Elf'.
I was dropping the kids off at school this morning, and called out as they were leaving the van, "Are you sure you got your lunch money?" To which Morgan runs back, "No! I think I left the money at home!" At this time some teacher yells out to me to keep moving (in the drop-off line). I pulled up a little so cars could go around me and wasn't blocking anyone, and just ignored the woman and asked Morgan where she thought she left it. As she is telling me, this woman walks up to the car and tells me "She (pointing at Morgan) needs to go into the school, and you need to drive forward!" I tell her I am making sure she has lunch today, to which she replies "She just needs to go in, and you need to keep driving!" I told her I would NOT be leaving until I was certain that my daughter was going to have a lunch today! This really upset me because there have been numerous times that I have been behind someone who WAS blocking the drop-off loop, and gets out of their car, talks to a teacher or something, and here I was NOT blocking the drop-off loop, and only there but maybe 2 min.! As I drove back home to get her lunch money, I called Brian and told him "I feel like an angry elf right now! He suggested that I blog about it to get it off my chest, so there we are. Hopefully the whole day won't be an "Angry Elf" kind of day!

Our backyard friends

Caterpillars everywhere! This past week the kids have been finding caterpillars all over the yard. These poor creatures have been carried around, named, housed, and then released again at the end of the day! Today Duncan found one that he brought inside and wanted to make a house for him. I told him it was best done outside, as we didn't want to loose him in the house. Well, being the determined 4 year old that he is, he snuck the Caterpillar into his room and built a house for him out of his blocks. I found this out when he later came to me to let me know that the Caterpillar was missing. "Missing from where?" I asked. "From the house in my room, he's lost in my room." Thankfully the poor thing was found and released back into the wild. After school Ronan, Morgan, & Duncan collected 13 of them together. I sure hope they get the chance to become butterflies!

Update on our baby birds:
They now have feathers. It's pretty tight quarters in there, and the mama bird continues to continues to come in and out with their food. Duncan tried to help her out and wanted to feed them a Caterpillar! I stopped the sacrifice of the poor creature, and emphasised that the mother bird will be the ONLY one feeding anything to the babies!

**Quick funny story**

I sent my sweet husband to Target tonight with a list of a few things to pick up. One of them was a new pair of flip flops for Morgan: size 1. He called very confused saying that he couldn't find a size one, but found plenty of 10-13. "No, she needs a 1" I said. "Oh! I found a 1, but it looks bigger than the 11 I just had!" "Yes, it should, 11 is smaller." "What? I've always known 1 to come before 11?" I explained how children's sized go up to 13, then start over again at 1. He thought this was SO ridiculous! And I couldn't believe that after having 5 children, THIS is the first time he's come in contact with this fact! I guess we know who usually does the shoe shopping!